Grimes Defends Moscow Show: "I Don't Think That Ignoring the Gay Community in Russia Is Cool"

"It doesn’t hurt the government if I refuse to tour there. Just regular people."

Claire Boucher aka Grimes has recently been working on her next record, the followup to 2012's Visions, and her tour schedule has been limited. But later this week she'll be traveling to Moscow for a private show, a move that has garnered some criticism among her fans. Earlier this year, in Russia, a federal law was passed banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships to minors" and suppressing the country's gay rights movement.

Boucher defended her decision to play Moscow on Tumblr. "I do not feel bad about it," she wrote. "I don’t think that denying and ignoring the gay community in Russia is cool."

Boucher expressed her excitement to be playing Russia and said her team's entrance would be safe. "It doesn’t hurt the government if I refuse to tour there. Just regular people," she wrote. "So I don’t think it’s wrong to be doing this. Refusing to go to Russia would only hurt fans."

Watch Grimes perform "Genesis" at last year's Pitchfork Music Festival: